Life In Hell
by RainbowsUnicornsAndDeath
Summary: Clary Fray is an average girl- that's what everyone thinks, anyway. Her father abuses her daily, and her brother, who has always helped to protect her from him is leaving for college. To top it all off, she's switching schools in the middle of the semester, and the popular kids make it their job to make her life even more of a hell. Will a certain someone be able to save her?
1. Chapter 1

**WARNING: This story contains swearing, abuse, and cutting, and I'm not sure what else yet. If that could trigger a reaction or it's not something you can handle, then please do not read.**

**I wish I owned the Mortal Instruments, but I do not- that honor belongs to Cassandra Clare. *pouts* **

_She was drifting through a void of darkness, trying desperately but still failing to find any source of light, sound, or anything at all. Anything to escape this endless darkness. Slowly, she closed her eyes, and just as she finally gave up on finding something, anything, a voice cut through the silence..._

"Clary! Clary, wake up!" a voice whispered urgently in her ear. It sounded familiar, but she couldn't quite place who it belonged to. "Come on, Clary! You can't be late today! You know our father won't tolerate it... Please, Clary!" By that point, she recognized that the voice belonged to none other than Jonathon Morgenstern, her older brother. "Clary! _Please, please, please _don't give him a reason to be mad at you! He's in a bad enough mood today already and I don't think I need to remind you what that means."

Clary bolted out of bed and instantly regretted it. Her muscles were still screaming from the beating she had received the night before. She wished that she was still dreaming, because, as horrible as that had been, at least she hadn't been able to feel any pain. "I'm up," she muttered. "Sort of..."

"Clary..." her brother started shakily, "you remember what today is, right?"

"Are we talking about it being my first day of school here in the middle of the semester? Or the fact that you're leaving for college today and I probably won't see you again in this lifetime?" she asked bitterly, stretching as much as her abused muscles would allow.

"Hey, don't be like that-"

Clary interrupted him mid-sentence, cracking her back, then her knuckles. "Why shouldn't I? It doesn't matter anyway because both of them are right! It's my first day at yet _another_ new school, you're leaving for college today, I probably won't ever see you again, and on top of it all, you know _Valentine _is going to be angrier than usual because you're leaving today and that means he's losing one of his slaves! You know I'm right!" Clary refused to call Valentine their father, because he hadn't ever been a true father to them. She was related to Valentine by blood and blood alone.

"Clary, you know I'd stay if I had a choice. Please, don't do this to me. I know you're mad, and you have the right to be, but can we please at least try to part on good terms? I don't want to any more than you want me to, and we both know how much that is." Jonathon tilted her face up so she was forced to meet his black eyes, and wasn't surprised to see that she was crying. He sighed and hugged her for a few minutes, giving her time to adjust to the pain that still caught her by surprise every morning. Once she finally stopped crying, he pulled away from her. "Better?"

Clary smiled up at him uncertainly. "Yeah... Just too much to handle so early in the morning. Did you make coffee?"

Jonathon just smiled. "That's all you ever think about, isn't it? Here." He handed her a steaming cup.

She stuck out her tongue and laughed at him as she drank her coffee. "Ahhhh. Delicious! And only in the morning. You wouldn't dare deprive me of caffeine. You know better."

"But of course, madam. Now get your ass moving! You have exactly twenty minutes to be downstairs and ready to leave."

"Yes, sir!" She mock-saluted him, then bolted into the bathroom. Looking at her face and body in the full-size mirror, she remembered what had happened the night before.

_She opened the door slowly, peeking around it slowly. Seeing no sign of Valentine as of yet, Clary slipped through the door. Running into the kitchen, she stopped dead in her tracks. He was waiting for her. "Bitch! Where were you? School let out twenty minutes ago! It doesn't take twenty minutes to walk home! You were out slutting around with some boy, weren't you? I can't believe YOU are my daughter. No daughter of mine could be such a fuck-up!" Valentine screamed at her, then, with no notice, punched her in the stomach. She doubled over on the floor, and he kicked her and continued to tell her just how worthless she was to him. "Your brother was always perfect! No mistakes! He came out right! But you- you were too much like your bitch of a mother- you even look just like her!" He kicked her one more time, the hardest yet, causing stars to dance across her vision. "Pathetic!" he spat. "Now make my dinner and get out of my sight!"S__he nodded hurriedly and started fixing dinner. The moment it was done, she placed it carefully on the table and scampered to her room to nurse her wounds._

Clary shook her head, ending the flashback. After turning on the water, she grabbed her razor and got in, finally letting the tears flow down her cheeks. _One cut for crying._ Cut. _One cut for being weak. _Cut._ One cut for being worthless. _Cut. _One cut for having no friends._ Cut. _One__ cut for Jonathon leaving. _Cut. _One cut for forcing us to move._ Cut. _One cut for letting this happen. _Cut. _One cut for what will happen. _Cut. _And one cut for cutting. _Cut. Watching her blood turn the water pink, Clary rinsed the razor and hid it in the cabinet under the sink so that Jonathon wouldn't see it before he left. He didn't know about the cutting and he didn't need to. She waited until the blood had stopped flowing as freely, then dug out her make-up bag. This might take a minute.

* * *

Ten minutes and several tubes of cover-up later, Clary was almost ready to leave. She threw on a plain gray long sleeve shirt and jeans, grabbed her bag, and dashed downstairs as fast as her bruised legs would carry her. She hastily cleaned up all the broken glass and the beer bottles littering the floor, and fixed breakfast for Valentine. She had just set it on the table when Jonathon came in.

"Come on Clare-Bear, time to go."

She nodded in response and they ran to the car. The whole ride there Clary kept her eyes on her hands, not looking up once.

Jonathon sighed. "Clary, I'm not gonna be there when you get home, so try to behave yourself. I can't protect you from him if I'm not there. If things get too bad, you know what to do. But please, only do that as a last resort. Promise me that, at least. Please?"

"Fine... I promise." Clary almost couldn't breathe from holding back tears, but she refused to cry.

"We're here. I'm gonna miss you Clare-Bear."

"Bye John." That was all Clary could say without bursting into tears, and Jonathon seemed to understand that. She hopped out of the car quickly, and ran towards the school entrance, only stopping once to glance back and watch her brother drive away, letting a single tear fall down her face.

* * *

**This is my first fanfiction, so please review and tell me what you think!**


	2. Chapter 2

**WARNING: This story contains coarse language, abuse, cutting, and I'm not really sure what else yet. If that could trigger a reaction or you can't handle it, then please don't read.**

**I wish I owned the Mortal Instruments, but I do not, seeing as I am not Cassandra Clare.**

"Okay, so if this is the main entrance, then where's the office?"Clary wondered aloud. She had been looking for more than twenty minutes, and she hadn't seen any sign of an office. Just then, a boy- scrawny, with curly black hair and round glasses- ran around the corner too fast and crashed into her, causing her to cringe away from him. Looking up, she realized how ridiculous she must seem, cowering in fear just because he ran into her _on accident._

The boy ran over to her instantly. "Oh my god! I am so sorry- I didn't mean to run into you. Are you okay? Do you need to go tho the nurse? I'm Simon by the way, but you probably don't care to know that. I should really stop taking. My big mouth always gets me into trouble. I really am sorry!"

"Simon, right? You don't need to worry about it. I'm fine. You didn't hurt me, it was just a natural reaction. I used to have trouble with the kids at my old school. I'm just used to ducking, that's all." she lied easily. "And I hate to have to ask you this, but do you know where the office is? It's my first day and I still need to pick up my schedule."

Simon looked immensely relieved that I wasn't mad at him. "Yeah, I do. Come on, I'll show you." He started walking down the hallway, then stopped when he realized she wasn't following him. "Hey! You coming or not?"

Clary blinked rapidly, shaking herself out of her thoughts. "Yeah, sorry. I'm just kinda out of it today."

Simon shook his head. "Well, at least you're new. Even the people that have been here the whole year still have trouble finding the main office, 'cause it's on the second floor on the other side of the hall, as where most schools have it right at the main entrance."

Clary smiled sheepishly. "Oh... But... Wait a minute! That doesn't make any sense!"

"Yeah, it's pretty weird. I think they did that just to confuse new students." he replied humorously.

"Yeah? Well if that's the case, it's working." Clary muttered under her breath, just loud enough for Simon to hear.

He laughed at her. "Glad someone understands how I feel." Clary looked at him questioningly. "I was new last year." Simon explained. "I should probably warn you, the kids here are gonna give you so much shit just because you're new, or you're short, or maybe even because you have red hair. They'll find stupid reasons like that to put you down, but they only do it because they're worried you're going to damage their reputations. Just remember that you're welcome to sit with me and my friends at lunch, unless you don't want to that is, and if that's the case, I totally understand, I wouldn't want to hang out with me either. I just thought-"

"Simon!" She cut him off mid-sentence. "I would love to hang out with you guys! It just can't be after school."

"Why not?" he asked curiously.

"My dad's really strict about that." she said. _Technically I'm not lying..._ she told herself. _I don't need to feel bad about it._

"Wow... I can't imagine having parents that strict. Mine let me do whatever I want." Simon said it as if he couldn't believe that someone would be that strict. "So, what do your parents do for a living?"

Clary looked down, suddenly finding her toes to be very interesting. "I never knew my mom. She could have died giving birth to me for all I know and my dad's an accountant. What about yours?" _You're not really lying, Clary, _she reminded herself. _You're just bending the truth a little, that's all._

"Nothing interesting. My mom is a real-estate agent and my dad died when I was young. I don't remember him at all."

"Oh... I would say I'm sorry about your dad but I know how annoying that gets. Let's change the subject. Um... Wanna play would you rather?" Clary grinned mischievously.

"Sure. Should I be worried?" Simon looked slightly unnerved.

"Not really. The rules are simple: we take turns asking totally out-there questions, and both of us have to answer. You have to say 'would you rather _this _or _that?'_ and you have to answer with only one of the choices. You can't say neither or both, and you can't skip the question. If something doesn't apply to you, you just answer as if it does. Got it?" She continued to grin, and it was really starting to creep Simon out.

"I think so. You can start with the questions." he said, not quite sure what he had gotten himself into.

Clary clapped her hands gleefully. "Yay! I'll start off with the easier questions, I guess. Would you rather have no one show up to your wedding or your funeral?"

Simon looked shocked. "That's an easy question? I'd hate to see a hard one. And I would rather no one show up to my wedding, I think, because it would hurt more to know that no one cared enough about me that when I died they didn't even bother showing up to my funeral. You?"

Clary answered instantly. "I think I would rather have no one show up to my funeral because I hate making people sad, and they probably wouldn't care anyways. The only way someone would go to my funeral is if they were being paid to or they had some major problem with me and they wanted to curse my grave. Either way, I'd prefer to avoid that situation. Your turn for a question!"

Simon glanced over at her, surprised that the question hadn't affected her at all. _Wow... _he thought to himself. _It doesn't bother her at all? She must really believe it. _Shaking himself out of his thoughts he asked the first question that came to his mind. "Would you rather brutally murder your entire family or be part of the human centipede?" He could have slapped himself. _Like she would actually know what that is! _

Surprisingly, she answered right away. "Horror movie fan, huh? Finally, someone that speaks my language. And brutally murder my entire family. Sometimes I want to do that anyways. Well except for my brother, but I don't think it would affect anything too much. How about you?"

Simon grinned, glad she had understood what he had been talking about. "Same. Your turn."

Clary thought for a moment. "If you had a daughter, would you rather her have no friends or be a total slut?"

_What kind of questions are these?_ Simon wondered. "No friends. As bad as that would be, it would still be better than her being on the bitch-squad." Clary busted out laughing, then winced slightly.

"Same, and for the same reason. I usually only refer to the cheerleaders as the bitch-squad though."

Simon grinned. "Yeah, I guess that would make more sense. Hey, this is the office. I can wait for you and show you to your next class if you want." He said it like a question.

Clary gave him a grateful smile. "Yes, please do. I can get lost anywhere, and chances are I wouldn't be able to find any of my classes. I should only be a minute in here." She turned and slipped through the office doors. Walking up to the secretary, she said, "My name is Clarissa Fray. I'm here to pick up my schedule."

The secretary smiled sweetly. "Of course dear. It's right here. Let me know if you need anything. I'll send your teacher a notice so she knows you're going to be there. Have a nice day, dear."

Clary winced at the pet name, but faked a convincing smile. "Thank you! I'll be sure to do that but I doubt it'll be necessary. Have a nice day!" she said in the nicest tone she could muster, then spun on her heel and hurried out the door to where Simon was waiting for her. She opened her schedule. "I don't even know what floor any of these are on, much less how to find the room numbers!" she cried out, frustrated.

Simon shook his head. "Here, let me see." He scanned over it quickly, then started walking. Clary had to run to catch up. "Okay, so you have English with Mr. Starkweather first, that's on the first floor, then you have History with Ms. Fairchild-" Simon cut off the rest of his sentence because Clary had suddenly turned pale. "Clary? You okay?" She only nodded in response. Slightly worried, Simon continued. "As I was saying, Ms. Fairchild is the room directly across from Mr. Starkweather's. Then you have lunch, so I'll come find you and show you the cafeteria, and we can discuss the rest of your schedule then. Okay?" Clary nodded slowly, like she was trying to memorize the information. "This is your classroom. I'll see you at lunch, okay?"

Clary finally answered verbally. "Okay. Bye, Simon!" She watched as he ran back up the stairs, then turned back to the classroom door.

_Here goes nothing..._


End file.
